Category Archives: General

I saw some ofmy friends do a post similar to this, and I was checking my archives and as it turned out, I haven’t really made a list like this in my past years of book blogging. Since this book blog has been feeling a little bit lonely lately, So I figure I’d write something like this. And yeah, maybe do a check on my goals, too, to see if I am still sort of on track. :)

Best Books of 2013 (So Far):

In no particular order:

Life of Pi by Yann Martel: “The ending left me…reeling. A friend told me about the twist in the story, but I wanted to be surprised and boy was I surprised. I couldn’t wrap my head around it for a while, and I had my first case of a book hangover for the year, which was extended right after watching the movie.”

Iscariot: A Novel of Judasby Tosca Lee: “Would there have been redemption for Judas, if he had just waited? Could he have become someone like Peter, who denied Jesus but accepted mercy which led him to become the great church leader that he is? If he had just waited until Sunday, would he have believed that Jesus was indeed the person he had been waiting for his entire life?”

What We Talk About When We Talk About Loveby Raymond Carver: “Because really, what do people talk about when they talk about love? My friends and I do this a lot, and while we all have these ideas and dreams and everything, I don’t think we will ever grasp what love really is about. The best we can do, I think, is try.”

Icon of the Indecisiveby Mina V. Esguerra: “Let’s just say this book had me…er, squeeing more than half the time. Hee. There were many, many things I wanted to ask at the end of the second book, but I’m very glad to report that this third book delivers.”

Required Reading – I am surprisingly managing this well. There were some books that I postponed reading (for the future (hello, May books), but other than that, I think I hit my monthly goals quite well.

The Reread Factor – I’ve reread several books but I didn’t get to review them. Oops. Maybe next time. :)

I don’t review all the books I read now because sometimes I get too lazy to review and by the time I realized that I should review it, it’s been too long and I can’t remember what to write anymore. So…there. But don’t worry, this blog isn’t going anywhere. :D I’m just a little busy with other life things. :)

Happy Friday everyone! It feels like I’m waking up from a long, kind of unpleasant dream today, with the rains and floods that’s happened in Manila lately. I hope everyone’s okay, though, or at least, recovering well!

On another note, it’s a little over a week till the 2nd Filipino ReaderCon! Ahh, I’m so excited! Are you? :) It will be a very busy day for me, but I won’t mind. It’s going to be on August 18, at the Filipinas Heritage Library — if you haven’t pre-registered, make sure you do so now so you can secure your slot!

I also really like this week’s Filipino Friday topic — enough of the rambling now, let’s answer it. :)

August 10 – Books and Friends. We will have book discussions hosted by several book clubs during the ReaderCon, so to prepare us for that, let’s talk about books and friendships and book clubs. Are you a part of a book club? If yes, what made you join one? What’s your favorite activity that you have with them? If you’re not a part of one, will you consider joining one? Why or why not?

Or if you’re not (yet) a part of a book club, do you have friends who share the same passion for books as you do? Do you have a “bookish” best friend? If yes, tell us about them! How did you become friends? What’s your favorite memory with them?

I’ve been a part of Goodreads – The Filipino Group since late 2010. I’ve talked about the first meet-up I attended on the blog before, and like what I’ve kept on saying, it’s really one of the best decisions I’ve ever done. I’m a social person, and I really want to share the things I like with people who has the same interest. My online communities often die because I end up lurking forever, so I was kind of expecting that it would happen with this, too. But I guess meeting people in the flesh makes it different because ever since that first meet-up, I’ve been meeting with them quite regularly, and I can say that they really are my friends. *sniff*

The first meet-up I attended with TFG

It’s been two years since that meet-up, and we’ve done so many things as a group. We used to have palengke meet-ups, or just informal meet-ups where everyone talks and exchanges books and all that. We watched movies together, hunted for books together, attended conferences together, partied together, and even went on some trips out of town with each other. Our big meet-ups used to be four times a year, but just recently, we’ve been meeting more often because of our monthly face to face discussions.

There is always, always a time in the year when my reading and posting slows down, and I just…disappear from the surface of the reading and blogging world. Or, almost. I just checked my last post here, and I saw that it’s been a week ago! Gasp! Where was I?

Well, aside from the fact that it’s been a bit busy at work, I’ve just been cruising along. I’ve been a slow reader ever since last month, for some reason. I don’t want to think that this is a slump, but maybe it is, because I would sometimes rather sleep than read. Sometimes I feel so exhausted after work that I wish I could use an external power source like ls14250 to keep me reading. Or blogging. Of course, I have been reading a classic lately, so that also counts for my slowness.

But really, it’s been a slow few weeks. The Goodreads challenge widget has been mocking me since April started — as of this morning I am 9 books behind, but I have managed to trim it down to…seven. It doesn’t feel like it’s much difference, but hey, I’ll take what I can get.

Anyway, I know I owe a lot of reviews here, but I may have to hold that off until after this weekend since I’m moderating my first book discussion! Okay, fine, I have moderated a book discussion before but it was online and it was pretty much a fail since I was out most of the time and the discussion never took off. But since my book club started having Face to Face discussions (what we call F2F) at the start of this year, these discussions have become some of my favorite times of the month. Being moderator of the club, too, I feel like I should exert extra effort to be there, because you know, I am a moderator.

But I digress! On Saturday, I’ll be moderating my first face to face book discussion, and it’s Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë. I just finished reading it earlier and I must say, I am very excited to moderate the discussion. :)

Hipstamatic shot of Jane Eyre!

The discussion seems to be a record-breaker in terms of attendance too, and I’m nervous and excited about that. Hee. There’s a certain thrill about meeting people and discussing books, and hearing different opinions about it and of course, agreeing to disagree. :) Who says reading is always a solitary thing?

Anyway, preparing for this will make me busy this week, but I hope I can get back to a blogging groove next week and you know, write the reviews I said I’d write. :) But right now, I just thought I’d say hello, I’m still alive. :D

Like this:

So I was lazily reading (by lazily, I mean it — I’m still such a slow reader from last month) one day this month when I noticed a little curious thing.

It seems like I have a case of the blues.

Literally.

Check out the print books I’ve finished reading lately:

Blue, blue, blue, blue, blue

Okay, Ender’s Game isn’t exactly that blue like the others, but the cover has dark blue tones. But look at all the blue! Even the ebooks I’ve been reading have (mostly) blue covers:

Have you ever noticed that with what you’re reading? I don’t pay huge attention to covers, but this is pretty cool how I seem to gravitate towards blue covers. Not that the blueness really means much to the stories in the books. There may be a psychology in this, with how there seem to be more blue-toned covers out there, right? Is it because it presents stability (as this infographic says)?

Of course there’s a part of me that makes me want to break this record of blues. I suddenly find the color of the cover affects how I’m choosing the next book I want to read. Just to break the color consistency.

This list contains 20 love stories to tug your heartstrings this February. This is far easier to write compared to the Young Heroes list, but it was also a bit hard because there were so many good love stories! I haven’t read the others here, but from how they sound like, they seem like swoony reads. :)

Hop over to the list if you need some romance fix, or if you want to share some of your favorite romance books, leave them in the comments section (of the list, preferably :) ).

Much thanks to my Twitter friends who responded to my shout out for suggestions! Have a great weekend, everyone! <3